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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29036505">devil on the tongue</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/seclusion/pseuds/dongtian'>dongtian (seclusion)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan Manga Spoilers, Unreliable Narrator</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 04:54:39</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>941</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29036505</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/seclusion/pseuds/dongtian</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>My son, how brave you are.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>devil on the tongue</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Reiner Braun is not okay. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>There is life, and there is death, and there is wanting to die but clinging desperately to a spider-thin thread without reason.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He is human. He values his life above all others. Reiner eats the stale, rationed bread after utilizing part of his worth as a human weapon and doesn’t notice the stench of death that surrounds them. Annie spends three days vomiting everything she chokes down after Wall Maria falls, Bertholdt rubbing her back the entire time. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Refugees swarm around them. The distraught howls don’t keep Reiner up at night, even as his empty stomach growls. In the mornings after, he huddles up beside Bertholdt, watching as Annie ducks out into the crowded streets to steal nearly-rotten apples. On the days where Annie returns with nothing but the hard, angry line of her mouth, Reiner finds himself wishing there were less people here, ragged and malnourished and so, so tragic. Maybe then loss wouldn’t thicken the air and make it hard to breathe. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>There is not wanting to die and doing everything to achieve it, be it trampling over living people that, in his eyes, are already corpses or threatening his comrades. There is a home waiting for him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Never mind that home has given him less acknowledgement in over a decade than he’s received in only a few years here in Paradis, among devils. Devils, he constantly reminds himself, filthy blood running through their veins. He’s not like them. He’s worked all his life to become a Marleyan, to make his mother proud and fight for his country. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Annie probably hates him. She doesn’t care about any of that, pride and the crimes of the Eldian race or whatever, but like him, she wants to go home. So Reiner doesn’t care that she hates him, because she’ll still help him cross the ocean again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Secrets, he discovers, want to be shared. No matter what they are, no matter how explosive the content, they push up against the roof of his mouth stubbornly and demand release. Titans to the wall. Titans to the flesh. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>When Eren is loud and outspoken and drunk on deep-seated revenge, he slams his fist into the cheek of a similarly noisy Jean. They fight, profane and meaningless, and it’s in absurd moments like those that makes him want to stand up, spill his beer, and declare his purpose and his hatred. To the entire room, who’d first look at him like he’s crazy, then dismiss his wild claims. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bertholdt sometimes looks at him like he’s crazy too, which he thinks he might be; it’s not from seeing people he was eating with three hours ago get snapped up by a former human, though. It’s not that at all. They’re devils, so Reiner doesn’t spare them an extra thought. He’s crazy from missing home, and his mother. His father? His father? Does Reiner have a father—he does, he hates Reiner—no, his father loves him, he just hasn’t met him yet—he’ll find him—he’ll go back to his mother and meet his father, returning as a hero of war, a true Marleyan—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Right. His father will be so proud to hear of his heroic adventures, surviving for years among devils, and his mother will cry tears of happiness to have him back unharmed. Then, they will go home, and his mother will make her best soup with the freshest carrots, and he and his father will catch up on lost years. Later, his father will call Reiner </span>
  <em>
    <span>my son.</span>
  </em>
  
</p><p>
  <span>My son, how brave you are. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eren, devil, nearly matches Reiner’s hatred. He rationalizes that this is why he occasionally feels the urge to clap Eren’s shoulder like he’s a friend, why he feeds into Eren’s purpose. Jaeger, devil, has the drive. Jaeger, devil, will exterminate all the Titans. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>How strong he is! Eren learns the gear until it’s second nature to him, flying around and dedicating his life to humanity, and the 104th training corps follow. Mikasa, always, and Armin and Jean and Sasha and Connie and Historia and even Ymir. He follows too, ignoring Bertholdt’s incredulous looks, whooping as the wind rings through his ears and he fights alongside friends. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>In reverse: Reiner returns. He finds Zeke. Ymir saves him. He loses Eren. On a high, wide wall, he tells the devil that he is the Armored Titan. Annie is captured. He kills Marco—no, Marco is eaten by a Titan, and Reiner is powerless to help. He meets new friends—devils—friends while infiltrating the military as a recruit. Wall Maria falls. Reiner leaves. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Reiner returns. His mind is a constant war. The battlefield he’s on more often than not is only a distraction, and Bertholdt is dead and likely Annie too. He’s still as Eldian as before, wearing his elbow patch and spit on by Marleyans, and his mother still talks about his father like he loves them. Her carrot soup doesn’t taste as good as before. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s home. There’s no trace of the thick flavour of his mother’s soup on his tongue anymore; only the bitterness of metal. The barrel of the gun presses up against the roof of his mouth like a secret, and Reiner could just pull the trigger. He applies the barest pressure, testing, and at the same time his heart thunders and bile rises, cold comfort slides its hands over his neck. He’s done this before. The only difference: now it is his life, not another’s. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The gun clatters on warm concrete. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>There is life. He is human. Reiner has a boy and a girl to protect and devils to defeat. </span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>i tweeted 'reiner braun is Not Okay' while reading aot manga this is what hppanned next</p><p>edit: kept reading 30 mins later.....damn reiner.....damn</p></blockquote></div></div>
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